Writing The Essay Is Cancelled

Early this morning President John Sexton met with the directors of the MAP program to discuss a campus-wide issue that had been recently brought to his attention. It seems that students have been forced to take a course in their first two semesters of college that ensures two things: much hair pulling and crushed dreams of a 4.0.

Sexton decided that enough was enough and called for the immediate removal of the course from MAP requirements. The directors of the program quickly agreed, and they have announced that next year, Writing the Essay will no longer be required.

Local asked Sexton what would happen to those who had been forced to suffer through the class, and he replied, “Our school doesn’t have a lot of money, but we are working on a reparations package.”

We spoke with a student who had taken the class. “It was the worst experience of my life. They make you do all of these exercises that are supposed to help, but when it comes time to write the essay you realize that you have no idea what you’re talking about,” she commented.

People say that NYU doesn’t care about its students, but Sexton’s quick and decisive action on this subject has given us hope that things may be changing here at NYU.

Comments

18 Comments

Maybe if NYU students focused more on developing quality writing skills instead of inflating their GPAs, they wouldn’t have so much to gripe about (and their professors and classmates who CAN write wouldn’t be as consistently disappointed). That would be a great April Fools trick

This course actually did a lot for my writing style, and I think is one of the most important courses I’ve ever taken at NYU. The problem is there is so much latitude in how it is taught, and you really need to luck out with the professor and material assigned, or you’re going to do miserably and learn little.

I remember one day when most kids in my WTE class turned mutinous, saying that they were wasting their time and not learning anything and weren’t getting good grades and shouldn’t be expected to take something that they felt was unnecessary in getting a job. Ironically enough nobody seemed aware of their own causal role in any of this. The teacher tried to point this out but she was too close to tears to be entirely articulate.

I think Writing the Essay actually works. It’s amazing how much better at writing you can become if you don’t constantly wade in negativity.

The thing is that the essay-writing you learn in WTE is entirely different from the type of writing you do for AP exams. AP essays are all about modified 5-paragraph essay structure, with theses and conclusions, and WTE is difficult mainly because it shuns that completely in favor of exploratory essay-writing.

So, yeah, shockingly you aren’t an expert essay-writer just from four years of high school-level classes (because AP classes, whatever they say, ARE high-school level). Who knew?

i never said i was an expert. and not to say I am a paid writer who’s talent funds their lifestyle. what I AM saying is that my major (as beyond my master thesis and university related work) will not require me to do any exploratory essay writing. honestly, all i’ll be doing is filling out charts. so sorry, if WTE feels like a pointless class that really in the grand scheme of things doesn’t affect the success of my life or career.

OH, AND GUESS WHAT?

I’ve done exploratory essays before and they aren’t that hard to master in under 15 minutes.

so in conclusion: i don’t need to take this class. but will i? why don’t we explore the answer?